Sunday, February 16, 2014

Wait...why are the Riders fighting again? Preliminary thoughts on "Kamen Rider War"

Oh, Shinichiro Shirakura. You really are a one-trick pony aren't you? For those who are uninformed, Shinichiro Shirakura is one of Toei's longtime content producers. He served as head producer on several Heisei Kamen Rider TV shows including Kamen Rider Agito, Kamen Rider Kabuto and Kamen Rider Decade. Since Decade finished with Kamen Rider x Kamen Rider: W & Decade Movie War 2010, he's kept only to producing movies including OOO, Den-O, All Riders: Let's Go, Kamen Riders, Kamen Rider x Super Sentai: Super Hero War and last year's Kamen Rider x Super Sentai x Space Sheriffs: Super Hero War Z. Notice a pattern with those last few movies? That's right, ever since Kamen Rider Decade The Movie: All Riders vs. Dai Shocker was such a runaway success (it remains to date the highest grossing Kamen Rider movie ever), Shirakura has been obsessed with the idea of a bunch of superheroes getting together and fighting among each other for little to no reason whatsoever before joining forces to take on a big baddie.

His writer of choice for these massive headaches disguised as crossovers is usually Shoji Yonemura, whom I've made very clear in the past I am not a big fan of. Yonemura obviously has a vast knowledge of the material, we can see this in the Net Movies he writes, but he's one of the laziest writers alive. He relies on cheap and meaningless fanservice to appease franchise faithfuls, writes the same plot over and over, and doesn't know how to work with characters he's given. Yonemura is fine in small doses (the aforementioned Net Movies, his episodes of Kamen Rider Den-O) but give him his own show or movie (with the exception of All Riders vs. Dai Shocker, which I liked) and you're in for a hell of a mess.

So that brings us to the newest collaboration between the two: the upcoming crossover film Heisei Riders Vs. Showa Riders: Kamen Rider War feat. Super Sentai.


This film has already set itself apart from the last few pieces of crap Toei has given us for the last few years. First off, Kamen Rider War will not be from the same director as all of the aforementioned crossovers: Osamu Kaneda. Instead, directorial duties have been handed to Takayuki Shibasaki. If I had to pick between the two directors, I could go with Shibasaki since he handles action better but neither one of them has a strong filmography. Before 2010, Shibasaki was the director of the yearly Hyper Battle Videos that Toei made to advertise their Kamen Rider series to readers of the TV-kun magazine and vice versa. However, he got his first major directorial gig with Kamen Rider x Kamen Rider x Kamen Rider: Cho Den-O The Movie Trilogy Episode Yellow: Treasure of DIEND Pirates. Not only is that the worst Den-O movie I've ever seen, it also just happens to have been written by a Mr. Shoji Yonemura. Go figure.

He's been an episode director on shows like Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters and Kamen Rider Gaim, but he's only directed three movies since and has yet to serve as a show's head director. Based on his filmography (he also directed Go-Busters The Movie: Protect the Tokyo Enetower!, Kamen Rider OOO Wonderful and Go-Busters Vs. Gokaiger), this automatically makes Kamen Rider War the largest movie of his career with the most pressure he's ever had. I only kinda like one of those movies, yet he's still tied with the number of movies I like out of Osamu Kaneda's much longer career.

Another reason this film is different is the actors. While it's obvious the leads of Kamen Rider Gaim will be given the juiciest roles since they are the newest Kamen Rider series, this movie has gone above and beyond in terms of bringing older actors back from not just the Heisei era but the Showa era as well. The most important cast announcement so far has easily been the news that Hiroshi Fujioka would reprise his role as Takeshi Hongo/Kamen Rider 1. While Fujioka did play Kamen Rider 1 in Let's Go Kamen Riders, it was a voice-only role. Here, Fujioka will not only appear on screen in a KR production for the first time since his cameo in Kamen Rider Agito The Movie: Project G4, but he'll transform for the first time in 38 years.


Also joining the battle from the Showa side is Ryo Hayami, reprising his role of Jin Keisuke/Kamen Rider X for the first time since Kamen Rider (1980), and Shun Sugata as Ryo Murasame/Kamen Rider ZX, who's playing the role for the first time since ZX's introduction in the TV special/failed pilot 10's Birth! Kamen Riders, All Together!! Interestingly, Sugata will also be playing Ambassador Darkness, the main villain of the ZX special. This dual role indicates that ZX will have a very important role to play, especially since it's confirmed the villains are the Badan Empire from that very same special. So hey, ZX fans will finally get some "canon" payoff after 30 years. That's pretty awesome.

On the Heisei side, the most unexpected reprisal probably belongs to Kento Handa playing Inui Takumi/Kamen Rider Faiz for the first time since that series ended 10 years ago. Handa's career never quite took off like so many other Heisei Rider stars, so it seemed like he had virtually retired after his appearances in Go-Onger but it seems this film was able to pull him out of retirement since some synopses indicate he'll have a key role. Kohei Murakami will once again play Hideaki Kusaka/Kamen Rider Kaixa, and it was his appearance on the film's announcement poster that drove fans wild with speculation. Finally, two announcements that surprised no one, Masahiro Inoue will once again play Tsukasa Kadoya/Kamen Rider Decade and Renn Kiriyama will play Shotaro Hidari/Kamen Rider W and Kamen Rider Joker.


Of course, these cast announcements are extremely impressive. But what has me worried is that Yonemura has a terrible habit of taking characters he didn't create and making them act completely out of character. This was evident with his treatment of Kamen Rider 1 in Let's Go, Kamen Riders and most recently with Retsu Ichijouji/Gavan in Super Hero War Z. So while it's great to see these actors come back, odds are that they're not going to be the characters we learned to love (or loved to hate in Kaixa's case).

Another way this film is different is the inclusion of an all-new Kamen Rider: Fifteen. Yes, his name is Kamen Rider Fifteen. How inventive. Anyways, not much is known about Fifteen right now except he'll be played by famous comedic actor Itao Itsuji and his powers are sort of a mix of Gaim and Decade's. After the Riders defeat each other, the fallen Riders become Lock Seeds (what?) and Fifteen uses these lock seeds to transform into these Riders and gain their powers. That's an interesting gimmick, but it doesn't sound much more than just that: a gimmick. His character is also seemingly tied to a mysterious young boy with amnesia (because of course), so its unclear if his motives are just simply to be evil.

Okay, after all that, I imagine you must be thinking: "I'm not sure why this guy is so upset about this film. It's bringing back a bunch of actors, paying off plot points that are literally decades old and promises awesome fights between the Riders". Well, that last part is what gets to me. The Riders fighting. When Kamen Rider Decade did this five years ago, it was a novel idea. Bring all of the Heisei (and later Showa) Riders together and pit them against each other. It was even played up in the TV series and movies that the Riders aren't meant to fight each other, that those whose hearts beat for freedom and justice should help one another. However, since Decade's aforementioned success, producer Shirakura has absolutely leeched onto this idea that the only way tickets can be sold is if we see the Riders or other Toei heroes fight each other before fighting the big baddie.

This idea has become officially tired. First there was Movie War 2010 which had Tsukasa defeating all the Riders with motives that STILL don't make sense, then there was Let's Go, Kamen Riders which had Riders 1 and 2 "hypnotized" and fighting our lead characters, and then there were the Super Hero War films. Its not even Shirakura who has been eating up this concept. We saw it twice last year with the Riders briefly fighting in the two-part Kamen Rider Wizard finale and the Bujin Riders literally going to war in Sengoku Movie Battle. Now, it's become clear that this is one of the only things Toei thinks can put butts in seats, even though it no longer makes any sense in terms of the story.

In Let's Go, Kamen Riders and Super Hero War, the heroes drove it home that they'll never actually fight each other and that they'll take on evil always. So how is it we're supposed to buy that they're fighting each other for real and no one is being deceived for some half-assed reason again? Oh, Shirakura has promised us that this time we'll see the Riders really fight, but if that's the case then that totally flies in the face of what Yonemura was trying to say in the last several crossovers.

Speaking of the actual fight, Toei recently opened up a poll on their official website for the film. It turns out that Toei's producers really don't want to piss anyone off by choosing one ending over the other, so they're pulling what they did with Kamen Rider Ryuki: 13 Riders: YOU pick the ending. That's right, Toei has put it upon us fans (the poll is open for everyone across the world) to decide who should win: Showa or Heisei. This has brought up much debate among Rider fans across the Internet and is having a pretty expected result: polarization. Now, Rider fans are bickering all over about which era they prefer, whether certain Riders belong or not, power levels, and so on. This movie, which was supposedly made to celebrate Kamen Rider, is now hurting the fanbase. When are we allowed to say Shirakura has done more harm to the franchise than good?

http://superhero-battle.com/

So that pretty much sums up my thoughts on Heisei Riders Vs. Showa Riders: Kamen Rider War feat. Super Sentai. As you can tell, I'm not very excited about th---wait a minute. Let me look over that title again...

...

Oh. So Super Sentai are in this movie too, apparently. That's right, instead of making this just one big Kamen Rider bash, Toei and Bandai have decided that this movie just wasn't busy enough and threw its second biggest franchise in there. Based on early synopses, it's pretty clear that Super Sentai is one huge afterthought. The only actors confirmed to be in the film are Ryo Ryusei as Daigo Kiryu/Kyoryu Red and Jun Shison as Raito/ToQ-1, and the plot only says that they're there to fight alongside the Kamen Riders. My guess is they're going to be there so we can introduce some new form/mecha that combines ToQger and Gaim's powers together like the last two Super Hero War films, and to advertise the new series since ratings for Super Sentai continue to decline. Yeah, all I will be thinking when I inevitably watch this film is that all the time they'll be on screen could have been used to bring back another actor or to devote time to the rest of the story.

Okay, NOW that does it for my preliminary thoughts. This film sounds like a mess, plain and simple. I'm not being deceived by the returning actors even though I really want to be (they got Kento Handa back, for Pete's sake!), the story sounds like your typical crap one could expect from Yonemura, and the whole concept of the Riders fighting to decide which era is better is inherently mean-spirited and betrays the spirit of Ishinomori's creation. I'll still watch it, but I'm not expecting much except for a film that's marginally better than Super Hero War and Super Hero War Z. Heh. Wouldn't it be funny if this film actually sucked more?

...

I shouldn't joke like that.

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